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The storied, oft-told background that served Alejandro Toledo get elected to the presidency of Peru poor Indian from the Andean mountains earns a degree from Stanford University and becomes an economist at the World Bank has raised great expectations among the more than half of the country's 26 million people who live in poverty. Most of the poor are Indians, and Toledo fueled their expectations with an unusual two-ceremony inauguration last Sunday, one the traditional at Lima and the other at legendary Machu Picchu, the pre-Columbian stronghold of the Inca Empire in the Andes. There he said he had come "to give thanks for the force and the courage that the Apus and the earth gave me," referring to the mountain gods, while a priest of the ancient Inca religion stated: "I have come to bring Toledo his power, his message, to put in his mouth what Peruvians are saying so that he guides us."
The job ahead for Toledo is awesome. Not only does he have to satisfy the expectations of those who voted for him but he must also woo nearly half the electorate whose vote he did not receive, while leading the turn-around of a stalled economy that shrank in the first five months of 2001.
Peruvians cannot wait long for him to take action on his pledges to create 1 million jobs, slash poverty, double teachers' salaries in five years and cut taxes.
"There are big social demands, and the workers and people want to see results, to see him keeping his promises to alleviate poverty and unemployment because we can't take much more," said Juan Jose Gorriti, head of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru, the country's biggest union.
Mario Huaman, head of the construction union, whose workers have been hardest hit by shrinking internal demand and declines in orders, said: "We're trusting in change but hope Toledo won't disappoint us. ... Workers can't eat numbers."
Toledo, who took his oath of office in the name of the 54 percent of Peruvians who live in poverty, will be walking a tightrope between his populist promises and his vow, to trim the budget deficit and maintain utter fiscal rigor.
"The government will seek to be efficient in its fight to end poverty, but Peruvians must understand that decades-old problems cannot be resolved overnight," said Raul Diez Canseco, Toledo's Vice President and Industry Minister, in what was seen as a preemptive move to damp down popular expectations.
The man on the economic firing line is Princeton- and Oxford-trained Finance Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who will also have to deal Peru's $2.1 billion in interest payments on its foreign debt, equal to a third of its exports. He is hoping for some latitude from the International Monetary Fund on macroeconomic goals for this year. Peru is set to miss the targets, and expects tough talks when the fund sends a mission to Peru in September. Peru's $54 billion mining- and fishing-based economy shrank by 1.6 percent in the early part of the year. IMF-agreed goals had included growth of 1.5 percent and a 1.5 percent budget deficit, both of which look out of reach.
Kuczynski is a respected fund manager whose appointment was cheered on Wall Street as a guarantee of fiscal probity. However, his very presence and that of his friend, Prime Minister Roberto Daņino, has sparked concern among some politicians and analysts of a lurch to the right that could clash with Toledo's costly social agenda.
Daņino, head of the Washington law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering's Latin American practice is a graduate of Harvard Law School and brings a long list of Washington contacts from his work at the firm and as a top official at the Inter-American Development Bank. He is known for his no-nonsense personality and is not expected to tolerate dissent within the cabinet. However, dissent already emerged on inauguration day. The Minister for Women, Doris Sanchez, who as a member of Congress opposed the privatization of Peru's ports, said she will hold on to this view, which is contrary to Kuczynski's.
For different reasons, two other members of Toledo's cabinet have sparked public controversy. One is Fernando Olivera, who was appointed Justice Minister although he is not a lawyer, a qualification though to be indispensable for occupying the post. Another is Fernando Rospigliosi, the Interior Minister.
Following the European system, Interior ministers in Latin America do not deal with public lands and resources as in the United States, but with the implementation and monitoring of public order through the government's law enforcement agencies. For example, they are the authority over police departments and there is a long and deplorable tradition in Latin America of Interior ministers acting at the service of governments' desire to smother the opposition through unlawful harassment.
Bearing this reality in mind, Rospigliosi is seen as a most unlikely Interior Minister. As a well-know journalist from Caretas, a take-no-prisoners political weekly, over time Rospigliosi has accumulated a lot of enemies who have publicly attacked him. It is said in Peru that as Interior Minister he will be able to return the favor by wielding the power of his office in the traditional manner.
Short honeymoons are expected by newly elected presidents, particularly if their populist campaign eventually collides with the realities of governing. Alejandro Toledo's may turn out to be shorter than most.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com